How Two Ohio Teachers Built a K-12 Data Platform Now Serving Nearly 30 School Districts Nationwide

Jessica Woodie
Published on April 15, 2026

Company: Abre Headquartered in: Cincinnati, OH Founded: 2017

Sector:

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The Problem They Saw From the Classroom

Before they were founders, Chris Rose and Zach Vander Veen were teachers — a math teacher and a history teacher in Ohio public schools. Over a combined two decades in K-12 education, they rotated through nearly every role a district has to offer: classroom instructor, instructional coach, administrator, technology director.

And everywhere they looked, they saw the same problem: schools were drowning in software that didn’t talk to each other. Attendance lived in one system. Grades in another. Behavior referrals in a third. Parent communication somewhere else entirely. Superintendents couldn’t get a straight answer about what was actually happening in their buildings, and teachers were spending hours a week on data entry that should have taken minutes.

“We weren’t trying to build a startup. We were trying to fix a problem we lived with every day as educators. The startup part came later.” — Zach Vander Veen, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer

The Impact: By the Numbers

Today, Abre is a Cincinnati-headquartered modern data platform for K-12 districts, and the results their customers report are concrete:

  • $400,000 in cost savings at Compton Unified School District (CA), by identifying and cancelling underperforming EdTech tools
  • 40% reduction in chronic absenteeism at Springfield City Schools (OH)
  • Millions in state funding preserved at Alief ISD (TX) through improved attendance
  • $30 per student in average annual savings for participating districts
  • Nearly 30 school districts across more than a dozen states — from Alaska to Alabama to Texas — now run on Abre

And the jobs story matters too. [Intake placeholder: company to provide current headcount, % of roles that are engineering/product, average salary, and any Ohio-specific hiring commitments. Example framing below.]

Abre has grown from two founders writing code in a district office to a team of roughly [X] employees, the majority based in Ohio, with engineering, customer success, and sales roles averaging $[X] in annual compensation — well above the regional median. The company has also hired former classroom teachers into non-teaching roles at rates the traditional EdTech market rarely matches.

The VC Partnership: More Than a Check

Abre’s journey through venture capital started local. CincyTech, a Cincinnati-based seed investor, was an early believer — partner Ashley Keating, a working mom herself, joined Abre’s board and helped the founders navigate the jump from district-built tool to scalable company.

Later, PeakSpan Capital led growth-stage investment, with partner Sanket Merchant joining the board to help expand Abre’s EdTech practice nationally.

What’s At Stake

Companies like Abre operate at the intersection of several policy debates Congress and regulators are actively weighing in 2026:

  • R&D tax treatment. As a software company reinvesting heavily in platform development, Abre’s ability to fully deduct R&D expenses directly shapes how many engineers it can hire in any given year.
  • Student data privacy and state-by-state compliance. Abre serves districts in more than a dozen states, each with its own framework. Coherent federal standards would lower the compliance tax on every EdTech startup.
  • Skilled workforce and talent pipeline. Scaling a K-12 platform requires engineers and former educators. Both pipelines are sensitive to immigration, visa, and workforce policy.